SOME GENERAL THOUGHTS ON PROPHECY FROM SCRIPTURE - A LOOK AT PROPHECY, PART 2 OF 5

Belshazzer's Feast, Rembrandt

As we look at prophecy, I'd like to start off with certain observations of prophets and prophecy from the Bible. After all, we need to see what the Biblical record points to as far as prophets if we want to know if prophecy is a part of the church today.

So here are my observations.

1. Prophecy is not a synonym of foretelling. Yes, prophets do have prophecies in the future, but their ministry is at least as much forth-telling. 
2. Deuteronomy 18:20-22 gives an indicator that a prophet of God would have a 100% record in foretelling, and if it fails to come to pass, he's not of God. (Jeremiah 28:7-9 is similar, focusing on prophets of peace.) However, fulfilled prophecy is not proof of the prophet being of God: Deuteronomy 13:1-5 mentions a prophet whose prediction is true but whose message is false.
3. There's a difference in the book orders of the Jewish Tanakh and our Old Testament. The former divides the books into the Law, the Prophets and the Writings (or the Psalms, which is the first book of the Writings); the latter has the Law, historical books, poetic (wisdom) books and prophetic books. The Tanakh classifies some of the books we consider historical to be written by prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings). Also, Daniel is placed in the Writings. Why? While Daniel's book was prophetic, he did not exercise the role of prophet to Israel as the other prophets did.
4. No prophet ever applied for the job. God called them. Some didn't want the job (Moses, Jonah), and Jeremiah wanted to quit, but God was the one who called them. There were schools of the prophets, but nobody from those schools were named, and only one actually did something (1 Kings 20). Likewise, the prophets were not authorities themselves, but spokespeople for and servants of the ultimate Sovereign.
   
5. God chose women as well as men, though they were a minority. However, there was Deborah (Judges 4-5), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-22; 2 Chronicles 34:22-28), Anna (Luke 2:36-38), and the four daughters of Phillip the Evangelist (Acts 21:9). The prophecy of the coming of the Spirit in Joel 2:28-32 says "Your sons and your daughters will prophesy." 
6. Approximately one fourth of Scripture was prophetic when it was written. Much of that has been fulfilled; the rest is yet to be fulfilled. How does this compare with holy books of other religions? Well, none of the others have future prophecies. It's like God was saying that fulfilled prophecy was a test of the speaker being of God, and then giving a lot of items to test and say the Bible is of God.
7. The purpose of Spiritual gifts is primarily the local church
   

IF YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH ZEPHANIAH, RAISE YOUR HANDS! (Zephaniah, part 1)

 If you're like me, you probably never heard a sermon preached on Zephaniah, and probably have never covered it in a Bible study or Sunday School class. I taught on it in Sunday School almost 20 years ago because I wasn't familiar with it, and memorized several passages, and learned to love this book! So I'm sharing this on Sundays over various weeks.

I'm sure that a prophet often feels like this addax from the Louisville Zoo - all alone in the open, vulnerable to attack on any front. (Okay, in reality this antelope does have some off-camera companions, and in the zoo there's no predators to worry about, but let's go with this analogy.)

One thing about the prophets (in this blog, I'm considering Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, and the 16 writing prophets) is we don't know much about the prophets. 

With some, we're not sure if we know them by their name or just by a description - for example, "Malachi" means "messenger."

Occupations? We know Ezekiel was a priest and suspect Jeremiah and Zechariah were as well. Daniel was one of Babylon's wisemen, and Amos was a shepherd and fig picker. Otherwise, we're not sure.

Marital status? Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea were; Jeremiah and Daniel weren't. The other fourteen? Some are assumed to be unmarried but there's no definite record.

Finally, how about geneology? Looking at the nineteen considered prophets, we know Zechariah's grandfather's name. We know the father of nine others, and nothing about eight more. 

This brings us to Zephaniah. No, we don't know if he was married or what he did for a living. Zephaniah was definitely his name (and that of others in Scripture), but we're not absolutely certain of its meaning - it can be translated "Yahweh has concealed, "Whom Yahweh has hidden," or "Yahweh lies in wait" (which fits Zephaniah 3:8). But we do know his geneology, which goes back five generations.

The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah. -  Zephaniah 1:1, NKJV

 Zephaniah has the longest lineage of any of the prophets. It also lets us know that he's of royal lineage: his great great grandfather was King Hezekiah. True, it doesn't say for sure, but to me its logical that considering it's the last name given and that it's a recognized name, as well as the time span - reigning king Josiah was Hezekiah's great grandson - it seems likely.

I mentioned the reigning king. Josiah was a good king who led in a reform. However, most consider those reforms to be superficial. Josiah had three sons (and a grandson) become king after him, and none followed his example, and the people didn't seem to be bothered.

I did make a comment of prophets feeling isolated like the addax pictured above. Zephaniah may have felt that way in his ministry, but he did prophesy in the same time as Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Urijah whose short and tragic ministry is described in Jeremiah 26:20-23).

So what was the message God gave through Zephaniah. You can wait until next week for Part 2. (Or you can read the book of Zephaniah - it will take 15-20 minutes to read the whole book.)